NEW RESEARCH RESULTS: Metabolism of berry anthocyanins to phenolic acids in humans

Thursday, 09 April 2009 11:59

Recent in vitro studies have reported that phenolic acids are the main metabolites of anthocyanins after fecal fermentation. In the study carried out at the Research Institute of Public Health, University of Kuopio, metabolism of berry anthocyanins to phenolic acids was studied in six healthy human subjects. They ingested bilberry-lingonberry purée (50 g) with or without oat cereals (50 g), to observe the effects of cereals on the metabolism of berry anthocyanins. The meal provided 650 mg anthocyanins from berries and 60 mg phenolic acids from berries and 12 mg from oat cereals. After the meal, urinary excretion of 18 phenolic acids (7 dietary compounds and 11 metabolites) was followed for 48 h.

The maximum concentration of plasma anthocyanins was observed 1.5 h after the berry purée and 3 h after the purée + cereals supplementation. The excretion peak of dietary phenolic acids was observed at 4-6 h after the purée + cereals supplementation and 2 h earlier after the supplementation of the purée alone. The excretion of phenolic acids increased after the supplementation, but not so much that the analysed phenolic acids could be considered to be the main metabolites of the ingested anthocyanins. The authors concluded that although fragmentation of anthocyanins to phenolic acids might occur to some extent in humans, still a large part of the anthocyanin metabolites remained unknown.

Reference:

Nurmi, T., Mursu, J., Heinonen, M., Nurmi, A., Hiltunen, R., Voutilainen, S. Metabolism of berry anthocyanins to phenolic acids in humans. J Agric Food Chem 57, 2274-2281, 2009.

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